Nicaragua – Orange beauty and brown bitey spiders

Nicaragua – Orange beauty and brown bitey spiders

We spent couple of days near the lake Managua in search for the juwel of this beautiful country. Davus ruficeps (ex. Metriopelma zebratum is the name of this little but extremely colorful dwarf tarantula. This species builds burrow underneath rocks and rotten logs. The burrows are usually completely covered with silk, but sadly not a the main entrance. This species is hard to find, as habitat destruction is a big problem within Nicaragua (and the whole world of course…). We found Davus ruficeps only in primary forest in a good ecosystem with less population. In the future we will see how big the distribution of this species is, as it is originally described from Costa Rica but still occurs in central Nicaragua.

The other spider we found is a brown species which we call Citharacanthus sp. at the moment. We found this species in whole central Nicaragua. As we could collect all specimens under permit, further research at the OUMNH from Dr. Stuart Longhorn will show to which species or genus it belongs.

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Research on arachnids is still in its early phase. Due to our passion, we are conducting various fieldtrips around the world to gather specific data for arachnids, mainly Theraphosidae, for further research.